Parity
by alyseci5
Summary: Warrick reflects on the tension in the labs, and wonders if he and Nick will ever regain what they've lost.


Warrick is too young to remember the sixties, back when 'his people' were supposed to know their place, but as a young black boy growing up in the seventies things weren't much better. There are still those who think that, and he's heard the word 'uppity' more than once since he became a CSI - although these days most don't tack the word 'negro' on afterwards.  
  
Most. And not all that do are on the other side of the law.  
  
He damned well knows his place - he's Grissom's chosen one, his anointed heir. The Golden Boy who can do no wrong, no matter the colour of his skin. Grissom's colour blind anyway, mostly because his boss is blind to most things except what goes on inside of a man, and whatever he sees inside of Warrick he seems to like.  
  
Nick and Sara would kill to be where Warrick is, accepted and supported without question. Sara makes no secret of her disgruntlement, although Grissom seems blind to that too, but Nick... Nick has grown quiet and subdued. There's less teasing now, less competitiveness, at least where Warrick is concerned.  
  
He misses it.  
  
Nick competes with Sara now, although that competitiveness seems half-hearted, at least on Nick's side. Warrick sometimes thinks that Sara was born swinging and hasn't grown out of the habit yet. She's got that light of battle in her eye and she's far too quick to step up to the plate, in his opinion. Or maybe that's just his experience talking - difficult to know when the job pitted them at loggerheads before they'd even been formally introduced.   
  
Nick and Sara have both put in for the promotion to lead CSI. Warrick hasn't. Grissom's favour only goes so far, and he has recent screw-ups on his books and an addiction he's still battling. In a way, it's a relief this time not to be involved in the tension that's stretching the nightshift out like barbed wire on a fence. He can take a backseat while Sara snaps her way through the lab, even more highly strung than normal, and pretend he's not involved when she takes a chunk out of another lab tech. She's making even fewer friends than normal, although he doubts she cares.  
  
Even Nick is unusually prickly, although how much of that is due to the looming appraisal and interview for the post, and how much to do with Sara is difficult to tell. Warrick's pragmatic about it all, which is easy to do when he's on the periphery. Personally, he hopes that Nick gets it, and he knows himself well enough to know that a large part of that is pure selfishness. He works well with Nick, could even work *for* Nick in a pinch, but Sara would make both their lives a living hell. He still remembers the grief she gave him when he was acting up and, while he doesn't hold or hold with holding grudges, well, dayum. He doesn't want a repetition, and certainly doesn't want her lording it over him. Woman makes a damned fine CSI, as long as there's someone to rein her in and as long as that someone isn't him.  
  
He tells Nick that and for a split second Nick gets this *look* on his face, like he's twisted up inside. Like he doesn't believe for a second that he will and doesn't want to be reminded of the fallout if he doesn't.  
  
"Yeah, well, man, get used to the idea," he says and Warrick shifts uncomfortably, wishing he'd never opened his mouth. There's a bitterness in Nick's voice that hasn't been there before, and it's not all aimed at Sara. The look in his dark eyes is pained and Warrick has the feeling that he's stumbled, unwitting, into treacherous waters.  
  
Just his luck to drown in a desert state.  
  
There's an awkward silence until Nick changes the subject back to the much safer ground of their case and, relieved, Warrick doesn't raise the matter again. His Grams didn't raise no fools and while Nick's a friend, he's never really been one for that whole open your heart male bonding thing, and neither has Nick.   
  
There was a time when he thought Nick cocky and full of himself, back when the competition between them was fuelled with equal parts testosterone and irritation. He wonders now whether it's really Nick who's changed or just his view of him. All he knows is that he misses the old Nick, the one who gave as good as he got, not the one whose mouth tightens in a familiar line when Grissom, once again, passes him over for a case. The old Nick would have bitched, not come to the conclusion that bitching is pointless because while Warrick is the Golden Boy and Sara is the Bratty Younger Sibling who demands, and gets, the attention, Nick's the other one. The middle child, neither one thing nor the other.  
  
Nick's a damned good CSI, in spite of his apparent doubts, but Warrick doesn't know how to tell him that without it getting weird. He's supposed to be Nick's peer, not his mentor, and Nick's been touchy enough in the past about the seniority thing.   
  
Warrick can just about squint hard enough to see his point.   
  
Catherine might get away with it, and probably has done knowing Catherine's need to meddle, but Nick doesn't need to hear it from Catherine, or from Warrick. He needs to hear it from the one person who would never say it, because it would never occur to Grissom that it needed to be said.   
  
There's nothing Warrick can do about that. He can only be honest with what he's got. He *does* want Nick to get the promotion, and at the end of the day that's not just because better Nick than Sara. Nick's good with people, and getting better with evidence, and in Warrick's considered opinion he'd make a good Lead CSI. He'd even put up with the inevitable crowing for a week or two, right up until the point where he slapped Nick back down again. It would be worth it just to be able to slap Nick down, to have a Nick who needed to be slapped. To have a Nick who's found his place again, and is confident enough in it to get cocky.  
  
Warrick knows his place - he's Grissom's favourite after all - but if Nick gets promoted maybe they'll achieve a parity of sorts. 


End file.
